From Experience to Influence: 2025 Jim Casey Fellows Take the Lead

The Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion has wel­comed a new class of Jim Casey Fel­lows. These 18 young lead­ers, who have expe­ri­ence in fos­ter care, will use their voic­es to improve child wel­fare poli­cies and prac­tices at the com­mu­ni­ty, state and nation­al levels.

The young lead­ers will build lead­er­ship and advo­ca­cy skills as they part­ner with the Foun­da­tion and its Jim Casey Youth Oppor­tu­ni­ties Ini­tia­tive^® net­work. Their work will help ensure that young peo­ple who have expe­ri­enced fos­ter care have the rela­tion­ships, resources and oppor­tu­ni­ties they need to thrive as they tran­si­tion to adulthood.

Learn more about the Jim Casey Initiative

The 2025 cohort joins a net­work of more than 150 lead­ers trained since the Jim Casey Fel­low­ship launched more than 20 years ago.

The newest Jim Casey Fel­lows and their home states include:

• Micha­lann Clark (Okla­homa)
• Jada Cut­triss (Indi­ana)*
• Brit­ney Deza (New Jersey)*
• Kay­la DiBruno (North Carolina)*
• Jake Hol­ley (Ari­zona)*
• Kai Jor­dan (Mary­land)*
• Zainab Kehinde (Mary­land)*
• Daisy Lar­son (Kansas)*
• Mon­i­ca Malek (Iowa)*
• Jaki­ah Moore (Ohio)*
• Ethan Nixon (Rhode Island)*
• Lay­la Nytes (Mis­sis­sip­pi)*
• Alon­dra Pati­no (Geor­gia)*
• Free­dom Pot­ter (Maine)
• Lisa Ramos (Con­necti­cut)*
• Jas­mine Shuler (South Carolina)*
• Bran­don Wash­ing­ton (Ten­nessee)*
• Tian­na Web­ster (Hawaii)*

“Fel­lows are not just par­tic­i­pants in this work — they are full part­ners,” said Alex Lohrbach, a senior asso­ciate with the Foundation’s Fam­i­ly Well-Being Strat­e­gy Group.

From the Youth Lead­er­ship Insti­tute to the Jim Casey Fellowship

The Jim Casey Fel­low­ship is open to young peo­ple who have com­plet­ed the Foundation’s Youth Lead­er­ship Insti­tute (YLI). Jim Casey Ini­tia­tive net­work sites, and oth­er local orga­ni­za­tions that serve old­er youth with fos­ter care expe­ri­ence, nom­i­nate young lead­ers who are involved in local advo­ca­cy efforts to attend YLI. Dur­ing the five-day insti­tute, par­tic­i­pants immerse them­selves in prin­ci­ples of authen­tic youth engage­ment to effec­tive­ly advo­cate for their well-being and their peers. The train­ing also strength­ens their under­stand­ing of how data can sup­port child wel­fare advo­ca­cy and deep­ens their knowl­edge of child wel­fare poli­cies and practices.

YLI was about ​“learn­ing how to advo­cate in a way that aligns with my val­ues,” said Jim Casey Fel­low Jaki­ah Moore, who part­ners with A Place 4 Me, the Jim Casey Initiative’s net­work site in Cuya­hoga Coun­ty, Ohio.

After com­plet­ing YLI, par­tic­i­pants apply what they learned in local sys­tems change efforts, con­tin­u­ing to part­ner with the orga­ni­za­tions and sites that nom­i­nat­ed them and con­tribut­ing to com­mu­ni­ty- and sys­tems-lev­el projects. In addi­tion to strength­en­ing this local work, par­tic­i­pants may apply to join the nation­al Jim Casey Fellowship.

Dur­ing the Fellowship’s first two years, Fel­lows engage in a learn­ing struc­ture designed to sup­port their lead­er­ship and pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment goals while expand­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties for both local and nation­al part­ner­ship. They con­tin­ue con­tribut­ing to efforts in their own com­mu­ni­ties and may also part­ner with the Casey Foun­da­tion in nation­al lead­er­ship roles.

This year, many Fel­lows joined the Jim Casey Initiative’s Advi­so­ry Com­mit­tee (ACOMM), a two-year com­mit­ment to serve as advis­ers to the Foundation’s Fam­i­ly Well-Being Strat­e­gy Group. In this role, they par­tic­i­pate in work­groups, assess new fos­ter care data, review reports before pub­li­ca­tion, co-facil­i­tate train­ings and con­tribute to nation­al con­ver­sa­tions where they can use their exper­tise to inform and shape pro­grams, poli­cies and resources for old­er youth in and tran­si­tion­ing from fos­ter care. ACOMM mem­bers gath­ered in Bal­ti­more in Feb­ru­ary 2026.

Lead­ing on What Mat­ters Most

A defin­ing val­ue of the Jim Casey Fel­low­ship is that young lead­ers focus on the issues that mat­ter most to them and their com­mu­ni­ties. The 2025 cohort’s areas of inter­est include:

• hous­ing stability;
• finan­cial stability;
• edu­ca­tion and employ­ment training;
• extend­ed fos­ter care;
• sup­port for young parents;
• kin­ship care;
• sib­ling rights;
• pre­ven­tion services;
• youth-dri­ven case plan­ning; and
• men­tal health and resources that sup­port healing.

“By part­ner­ing with the Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion and oth­er advo­cates, I see a chance to ampli­fy the impact of my work and cre­ate a world where young peo­ple in fos­ter care do not just sur­vive but thrive and turn their trau­ma into tri­umph,” said Jim Casey Fel­low Jada Cut­triss, who part­ners with Fos­ter Suc­cess, the Jim Casey Initiative’s net­work site in Indi­ana. ​“The Fel­low­ship rep­re­sents the bridge between lived expe­ri­ence and sys­tems change, and I want to be part of that movement.”

The 2025 cohort is also inter­est­ed in devel­op­ing skills in meet­ing facil­i­ta­tion, pub­lic speak­ing, com­mu­ni­ty and civic engage­ment and pair­ing data with per­son­al sto­ries about their expe­ri­ence in fos­ter care. Fel­lows involved in Foun­da­tion projects are assigned mean­ing­ful roles that match the skills they want to build. In align­ment with the Authen­tic Youth Engage­ment Frame­work, Jim Casey Fel­lows are pre­pared and sup­port­ed to con­fi­dent­ly and effec­tive­ly shape solutions.

“The Casey Foun­da­tion and Jim Casey Ini­tia­tive net­work sites and part­ners val­ue what young peo­ple with expe­ri­ence in fos­ter care bring to improve out­comes while also invest­ing in their lead­er­ship and per­son­al devel­op­ment by sup­port­ing them to use their skills, wis­dom and voic­es to influ­ence change,” said Lorhbach. ​“When we suc­ceed at both, Fel­lows grow as lead­ers and the solu­tions they shape are stronger.”

*An aster­isk indi­cates a Jim Casey Fel­low who also serves on the Jim Casey Initiative’s Advi­so­ry Committee.